Safety helmets are used in a number of recreational and occupational activities including, for example, bicycling, motorcycling, skateboarding, in-line skating, and road construction work. When one of those activities is undertaken at night or during other low visibility conditions, it is important that the participant be visible to others, especially drivers of passing motor vehicles. If drivers cannot see the participant, then they may collide with the participant and inflict serious injury.
Conventional safety helmets have been provided with reflectors to make the wearer visible to others. The effectiveness of reflectors, however, is limited because they are passive devices that function only when subjected to an external source of illumination. The effectiveness of reflectors is further limited by the angle of incidence and the brightness of the external source of illumination. Consequently, there are many circumstances under which conventional safety helmets do not make the wearer adequately visible to others.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an improved safety helmet that makes the wearer visible to others at night or during other low visibility conditions without jeopardizing the impact protection provided by the safety helmet.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.